


Shadowboxing

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Mental Health Issues, kind of a magical spirit journey, mentions of joe's ocd, minus any appropriation business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 01:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3362810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete wakes up to a summer morning that never ends, in a town populated only by himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadowboxing

**Author's Note:**

> set in some vague au-ish world where they all live in the same small town but they're still in a band together.

Pete wakes up really, really late. 

He wakes up late for a lot of reasons. He doesn't have an alarm clock for one. There's no one in bed with him for another, which hasn't been such a strange thing for a while. And also, it's utterly silent. 

The last one kind of throws Pete when he notices it. He's used to constant noise ever since he'd moved back in with his parents, hissing coffeemakers and television and conversation. He lays in bed for ten, twenty minutes just listening. It's so totally silent in the house he can hear his heartbeat. 

The kind of silence of an empty house. Not just sleeping occupants. 

Pete gets up and pads down the stairs. It's really hot for some reason, like his mom hasn't woken to turn on the A/C. He checks it in passing and, yeah, it's off. He turns it on. 

His mom isn't home. 

No one's home, it turns out, and Pete starts to feel the first needling bite of panic. He checks his phone but he has no messages. 

Which is... also kind of strange. 

He calls his mom and jumps when he hears the ringtone echoing down the hall from her room, nudging the door back open and wresting the buzzing phone from the blankets. 

He stares at his mom's phone and tries really hard not to hyperventilate. 

It's not so strange, he reasons with himself. Groceries, maybe she went to pick some up and forgot her phone. And to turn on the A/C. Or leave a note. 

Right. 

He calls Joe. 

Joe doesn't answer, not on the first call and not on the fifth. Pete stops leaving messages after the second one, an attempt at humor in ‘Seriously motherfucker, you better be getting laid or something’. He suspects it falls flat and doesn’t care. 

He calls Andy four times, glances at Patrick’s name and moves on down the list of his contacts. No one answers, not exes and not former bandmates and not teachers. No one. Pete sits down in the middle of the hallway, puts his head between his knees for a while and tries to breathe slowly. 

Eventually he gets stiff and sore and moves to the couch, still fighting off blind panic. What exactly does a person _do_ when everyone they know has vanished? Pete has no fucking clue. 

He does what he always does when he can’t think of what to do. He finally calls Patrick. 

Patrick doesn’t answer but his phone doesn’t go to voicemail either. It just rings, and rings, and keeps ringing until two minutes of ringing have passed and Pete is about ready to climb out of his fucking skin. Pete hangs up and stares at the dim little LCD screen. 

It doesn’t tell him anything important, just the time - 10 PM - and that the last time he had called Patrick was two minutes and six seconds ago. 

Pete blinks at his phone and then stares out the window into the rich late-morning sunlight. 

Restarting his phone doesn’t tell him anything different. It’s still ten in the evening and the sun is in the wrong fucking half of the sky. He restarts it again, and then again, and then throws it at the wall and scrambles out of the room and into the kitchen. He slams a hip into the kitchen table and hisses through the pain, squinting at the digital numbers on the stove. 

The stove clock tells him it’s just before six in the morning. The wall clock tells him it’s nearly half past four in the afternoon. Pete lets himself fall into one of the chairs and scrubs his face with his hands. 

His first thought, uncharitably, is that if he finds out this was a practical joke by one of the guys he’s going to piss in every one of their beds. Every single one. 

His second thought is that he really doubts any one of them is comfortable enough yet to pull this shit, worried it might upset the delicate balance they’ve all reached. 

He winces and scrubs his face again, edging his way past that thought. 

There’s nothing he can do in the house but wait, and for what his phone tells him is an hour that’s what he does. He curls up in the corner of the couch and watches the door over the top of his notebook. 

No one comes in, and Pete can’t hear anyone out in the street. He doesn’t really get anything written, just doodles in the margins and draws on his knuckles and slowly gets more and more restless. 

Eventually he can’t take it anymore. 

Kicking over the coffee table happens before he’s really conscious of it, just a flare of pain in his foot and the crash of the table hitting the floor and he’s standing in the middle of the wreckage. Shattered pieces of glass twinkle around his shoes. He clenches his hands into fists and presses them into his thighs, trying to breathe deeply, trying to calm down. 

He needs to get out. He needs to _do_ something or he’s going to _explode_. He’s going to leave the house, that’s a foregone conclusion now, it’s just a matter of where to go. Vaguely he considers going looking for his parents and decides really quickly not to. He’s not sure where to begin, for one, and if he can’t find them… 

He doesn’t want to think about that. A better bet to go looking for Andy or Joe or maybe Patrick. He knows where they’ll be, probably. 

It’s hot outside when he opens the front door, even hotter than it was inside. The syrupy air billows past his face and he has to squint a little into the sunshine to see. He tastes dirt when he breathes in and coughs a little on all the dust. 

The street’s deserted too, not that Pete’s surprised. Cars are parked neatly in driveways and doors are shut tight and there isn’t a single kid playing in the street. Pete briefly considers trying to convince himself it’s a school day and everyone’s at work but he decides it’s not worth it. He knows it’s a Saturday, or it would be if time were working. 

He heads down the sidewalk at a decent walking pace, not the flat-out sprint he really wants to break into. It’s too hot, honestly. He’s kind of got the feeling he should save his energy.

-8-

The day stays still and silent and hot as he meanders down street after street in the vague direction of Joe’s house. It’s almost midnight according to his phone when Pete hits the downtown, terrifyingly empty just like the rest of town had been.

The sun burns down between the buildings, muggy and unending. Pete pokes around in a few of the buildings, on the off chance there’s someone hiding from the heat in a deserted cafe or bookstore, but nothing. As he’d been expecting, really. 

He’s getting the feeling something bigger and scarier than a simple prank is going on. He thinks ‘nuclear holocaust’ for a second before realizing how dumb that is. Then he thinks _Rapture_ and can’t shake that idea away. It’s a seductive thought. 

He heads back to the main street and in the direction of Joe’s house because he can’t really think of anything else to do. The monotony of the silence is wearing on him and he keeps his head down, hands tucked in his pockets. 

There’s something, maybe a faint scuffling noise or maybe just intuition that make’s Pete spin. A few feet away the sun is reflecting blindingly bright off the windows and through the glare Pete can make out a vague humanoid shape. He had been _absolutely certain_ the street had been deserted a moment ago. 

Pete swallows back something that would probably have been a yelp if he’d let it out and backs up, away from the person. The first person he’s seen since he woke up. At least, he thinks it’s a person. He hopes. 

“Hey,” the vague shape says. Its voice is probably masculine but Pete can make out literally nothing else. 

“Hi,” he says cautiously. He doesn’t approach. 

There’s no one else in sight, just the same empty streets and empty buildings and dead, empty heat. Sun reflects off the window behind the man, making Pete squint. 

“Whatcha up to?” the man asks and there’s something about the tone of his voice that makes Pete adjust his vague assessment of the dude’s age down a decade or two. It’s too interested, too carefree maybe. Something… callously youthful?

Pete tells himself he’s been spending too much time with his notebook and thesaurus and tries on a grin at the vague silhouette

The dude ambles forward a few steps and out of the glare, proving to look reassuringly human. He looks about Pete’s age, maybe a year or two older. His hair is kind of long, but in a stringy way like he hasn’t cut it in a while. His clothes are pretty nondescript, almost remarkably so. He’s got a twisty little smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, knowing and smug. Pete doesn’t like it very much. 

“Just, you know, looking,” Pete says with a shrug. He doesn’t take his eyes off the dude.

“Whatcha looking for?” the dude asks lazily, tilting his head a little. There’s something weird and unsettling in the way he does it. 

“My friends Joe and Andy, I guess. And Patrick,” Pete says after a moment. It’s the literal truth, and all he can really think to give. He kinda has the impression it would be a bad idea to lie right now, to the only other person trapped in this hot, dead facsimile of his town. 

Even if the man is grinning way too wide and way too knowing. Even if Pete’s maybe getting the inkling the man isn’t a fellow prisoner. Maybe something like a jailer. 

Pete carefully boxes away that thought before it sparks another panic attack. 

“Friends are good,” the non sequitur falls from the dude’s mouth with a studious lack of inflection that doesn’t fool Pete at all. “You might wanna get going. Not much to see here.” 

“Right,” Pete says, and backs up a little until he’s in the street. The dude just watches him go, still smiling that damning little smile. 

Pete turns away deliberately, starts walking down the street in the direction of Joe’s house. If something bad happens to him when his back is turned it’s going to happen eventually one way or another, he reasons. 

Nothing does happen, though, just the tight feeling between his shoulder blades of being watched. 

“Don’t get lost,” he hears the dude call out. When he glances back to check the dude is gone like he wasn’t ever there. Pete isn’t surprised. 

“I’m in a fucking Shyamalan movie,” he mutters to himself. Nothing replies even though he kind of expects it to.

-8-

He gets lost.

It’s easy, probably would be even if he weren’t in some Nether-Hell version of the town he knows, where the sun is too bright and everything’s too hot. He’s used to a car and honestly to not having to drive himself. He relies on Joe for that maybe too much. 

He spends what his phone tells him is half an hour wandering around a subdivision, kicking around in the shrubs and dribbling a discarded soccer ball for a while. He doesn’t have the impression there’s anything particularly urgent going on. The sun hasn’t shifted position at all, and no one’s appeared out of thin air to be creepy at him yet. 

He finds the right street eventually.

-8-

Joe’s house is empty.

Pete knows where the spare key is and lets himself in and wanders from room to room, yelling at the top of his lungs. No one answers and Pete eventually gives up. Sits himself down in the living room, puts his shoes on the coffee table and stares at his fraying shoelaces. They dangle limply. There’s no such thing as wind here, apparently. 

He exhales hard and lets his head fall back against the back of the couch. He stares at the ceiling for a couple of long, hot minutes that could be hours for all Pete really knows. Time doesn’t _work_ and he’s _utterly alone in the entire world_ and he’s staring at the ceiling of Joe’s living room, useless. 

Anger sparks familiar and ugly in his gut, forcing him to his feet. 

“Fuck this, _fuck_ this!” he shouts into the dim air of the empty house, and kicks over the chair in the corner. It feels good, feels cathartic, and there’s no one in the entire world except a creepy dude with the ability to vanish into thin air, and no one is telling him to stop. 

The living room is a ruined landscape of tipped furniture and shattered ornaments when Pete’s done. There’s a hole on the far wall where Pete had thrown a heavy enough book, plaster dust and ripped paper slippery underfoot. His breath is coming in sharp pants and he doesn’t really feel any better. 

The house is still utterly still and totally silent. No one runs in from the kitchen or the backyard to scold Pete. No creepy dude turns up to offer more cryptic remarks. There’s nothing but settling plaster dust. 

Guilt pulls suddenly at his chest and he turns away, hunching into himself. 

The bathroom off Joe’s room is the same as ever, clean and neat and shining white. It’s soothingly familiar in a situation Pete feels like he’s losing any semblance of a grasp on. 

When Pete twists the faucet the tap water is tepid and feels kind of slimy but Pete splashes some on his face anyway. It cools him down a little at least, which is nice. Leftover anger is making his face hot and his hands tremble. He glances up into the mirror, expecting to see his own ragged face, fucked up hair and yesterday’s smudgy eyeliner and all. 

Joe stares back at him, eyes wide and panicked, and Pete screams. Throwing himself backwards makes him stumble over the toilet, and he ends up pressed against the far wall, staring. 

A second later Joe is pounding on the other side of the mirror, impacts that are jarring for how soundless they are. Vertigo pulls at Pete’s stomach for a moment - that’s a _mirror_ , Joe’s in a _mirror_ \- before his brain catches up and he’s panicking too. He trips over the toilet again on his way past, stumbling up against the counter and pressing a hand against the mirror. 

It’s cool and hard but for just a split second it feels looser under his palm, feels like it would give way if he only pressed a little harder. 

Joe has his mouth open like he’s shouting but Pete can’t hear anything but his own rapid breathing. 

“Joe?” he demands, and slams his fist into the mirror where Joe is pounding from the other side. 

There’s a moment of give when his fist impacts, a moment like his fist is about to go _through_ before the surface firms up and pain flares in his knuckles. He yelps and steps back, cradling his hand and staring at Joe staring at him. ‘

“Do I need to come through?” he asks helplessly. 

Joe shrugs, mouths something Pete can’t hear. 

“Fuck, okay,” Pete says, and then backs up a step before throwing himself into the mirror. 

Falling through the mirror feels like falling through a sheet of paper, an initial burst of impact and then a jagged ripping sensation and Pete’s through to the other side. It makes his bones hum for a moment like standing in front of a really big amp, but he shakes that away. 

It’s dark on the other side, not a mirror of the bright white bathroom Pete had expected. Dark, and kind of dank too. There’s a moist feeling to the air that Pete _really_ doesn’t like. It tastes faintly metallic, like water from old pipes. 

Pete spins but there’s no sign of the mirror he’d come through. Just a dark, smooth wall. 

“Joe?” he calls into the dark. He can kind of make out the edges of a room, an empty doorframe leading out into a dark hole of a hallway. It’s utterly bare, just featureless walls and blank corners. 

Nothing but silence answers his call. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, and stumbles his way out of the room and into the hall. 

The dimness follows him down the hallway, allowing him nothing but vague impressions of the blank walls and floor. It’s not like there’s anything to see anyway, the walls look like smooth plaster and the floor is cold concrete when Pete dips to brush his fingertips against it. 

He keeps walking. He doesn’t have a whole lot of choice. Every few seconds he calls Joe’s name into the darkness. 

It starts faint and almost beyond the range of his hearing but eventually Pete notices the sound of running water somewhere ahead. 

He pauses for a moment in the darkness, holding his breath in an effort to hear it better. The irregular splashing is unmistakable though, and Pete picks up his pace. It’s disorienting, running in the almost total darkness, but there’s nothing to trip over and the walls are straight and apparently unending. 

The darkness doesn’t clear so much as gradually lighten, and Pete wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t on such high alert. The walls spread wider and wider, the hall broadening until Pete can barely call it a hall anymore. It’s a long room, now. In the gloom ahead he can sort of make out a far wall. The sound of water is coming from it and Pete hurries forward. 

The far wall looms up in his sight and seconds later Pete can make out a dim shape, growing more distinct by the second. It’s a dude bent over a sink, haircut unmistakably Joe. The sound of the tap is the water Pete had heard. 

There’s something about the shape of Joe’s silhouette, something twisted and lumpy and wrong. It takes a couple of steps for Pete to make it out and then he hisses, bounding forward to press fingertips against Joe’s shoulder. 

There are wires wrapped around him from waist to neck. Pete recognizes some of them, the thick black of the cords that connect guitar to amp, the thinner black of a laptop charger. There are a couple white USB cords, webbed around Joe’s arms and limiting his range of motion. They’re thick, restricting, and Joe fights them with every movement. 

He’s washing his hands mechanically, rubbing them over and over under the thin stream of water from the faucet. 

“Joe?” Pete asks, voice almost gone. “Joe.” 

Joe twitches like he’s heard but doesn’t move his face from bent over the sink. The water is Pete’s only response. 

Pete looks down into the sink and almost vomits. 

The water is thick with soap, white foam shot through with pink. Little twists of red that have to be blood bloom every now and then from the murky depths. 

Joe lifts his hands out of the water for a moment, shaking them, before dipping them back in and beginning to scrub all over again. The brief glimpse of his skin is raw and red, blood beading on his knuckles and slipping down his wrists. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Pete swears and seizes Joe by the shoulder. He yanks as hard as he can, trying to pull Joe away from the sink, away from the _wires_ but stiff resistance pulls him up short. 

The wires are webbed to the sink, somehow twisted together and secured to the wall so that to pull Joe away will mean having to untangle him first. 

Pete hesitates and then grabs the end of a white USB cord, yanking at it determinedly. Untucking it from its brethren is hard, they’re all cinched so tight Pete’s concerned for Joe’s circulation, but it loosens eventually and drops away. Relieving. Pete’d been bizarrely worried the wires had been fused with Joe’s flesh or something equally gruesome. 

“I’m getting you out,” he promises to Joe. 

Joe’s head wobbles for a moment, tilts to see Pete out of the corner of one dim eye. The wires around his neck don’t allow much more movement. There’s nothing like recognition when Pete meets his eyes hopefully and then he’s turning back to the sink anyway. 

Pete glances at the pink water and winces. Doesn’t look again. Keeps working, silent. 

The more wires Pete picks away the more twisty their tangles get until Pete’s wrist-deep in them, trying to pull a single strand out from where it’s nestled. The wires are hard to get at, with Joe’s arms jostling around washing his hands. 

He pulls it free at last with a little triumphant noise and goes to slip his hands out of the mess. Something tightens around his wrist as he does and when he finally frees his hand enough to see there’s a white twist of wire wrapped around his wrist. 

Pulling against the thick white plastic cinches it tight and then too tight, and Pete hisses out a breath. Tugging at it with his free hand does nothing and it refuses to listen. Pete hopes it’s just panic playing tricks on him but he thinks it might be pulling tighter the more he tries to pull it off. 

He gives up and keeps working, steadily tugging at the knotted plastic around Joe’s chest. Hopefully when he frees Joe the wires will loosen enough to free himself. Hopefully. God, Pete hopes so. 

“I’m sorry,” Joe mutters, apparently apropos of nothing. His eyes are still glassy and no emotion sparks in them when they slide past Pete’s face. 

Pete’s chest aches but he keeps working. 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he mutters, and then hisses when the loop of wire around his wrist cinches tighter. A thick black electrical cord has joined it, laying across his forearm with a threatening weight. He ignores it as best he can. He’s about halfway done with Joe’s chest, a tangle of frayed wires growing around his feet. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Joe says again, and he bends forward towards the sink. Somehow there are more wires than Pete thought, branching across Joe’s shoulders and back and fuck, fuck, his hand is starting to tingle. 

“Joe, no, come on,” he says, letting go of the cluster of wires across Joe’s chest with his free hand to pull his chin around until Joe’s looking at him. “It’s me, it’s Pete, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” 

Joe shakes his head and a pair of wires drop across Pete’s free wrist, coiling tight and agonizing. 

“Pete? Who’s Pete?” he asks with dull curiosity. His eyes are half-shut and blank and Pete feels his heart thud painfully. 

“Your friend, I mean, I think. Pete Wentz?” Pete says hopelessly. 

“Pete Wentz?” Joe asks, something twisting in his face. “He’s not my friend. He doesn’t even know me.”

Pete has to hiss in a breath, his ribs constricting a little. 

“He does, shit, I mean I do. We’re friends, Joe,” Pete says, tugging at the wires with renewed desperation. He can feel the wires at their feet moving and he doesn’t want to think of them climbing his ankles, his legs, cocooning him in and tying him to the bloody sink with Joe forever. 

“We can’t be,” Joe says, tone disinterested, hands splashing gently in the sink. The metallic scent in the air is intensifying and Pete want to gag. “He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t like me.” 

“God, Joe,” Pete hisses, the aching in his wrists making his voice ragged. Every breath he takes now pulls more of the scent of blood and plastic into his mouth. “I do, I promise, I swear I do.” 

Joe pauses, looks at him again out of the corner of his eye. Pete meets his gaze for a moment before renewing his tugging on the wires. Joe’s expression had been strange, almost wistful. Like he’d wanted to believe Pete and couldn’t quite manage it. 

It might be Pete’s imagination but the wires around Joe’s chest are loosening, getting thinner and less numerous in a way that can’t be totally explained by Pete’s efforts. He doesn’t think it is his imagination though; not in this place. 

“You’re like the backbone of our band,” Pete grits out, yanking away the last of the thick guitar cables. All that’s left are the thin cords and a loop of thick laptop charger around Joe’s neck. They’re pressing in, too tight to be comfortable. Pete apologizes silently as he tugs on them. 

“Band?” Joe asks, his tone finally gaining some color. The splashing has stopped and when Pete spares a glance his hands are hanging limply in the water. 

“Yeah, man,” Pete gasps, freeing the last of the cords around Joe’s arm and feeling the bones in his arm start to grind faintly. “You started that shit, I owe you so much, you have no idea.” 

“Did I? We did that?” Joe asks, something like pride in his tone. Pete chest aches, almost as painful as the sharp ache in his wrists. 

The last of the wires around Joe’s arms and chest fall away with one last hard tug. 

“Joe, you’re basically my _best_ friend,” Pete grits out, digs his fingers under the last thick loop around Joe’s throat and levers all of his weight back against it. The bones in his wrist grind together and for a beat he’s certain his wrists are about to break. He has to scream, a thin noise of pain he’s never heard himself make before. 

The plastic gives way under his hands. 

The last of the wires falls away, dropping from Pete’s wrists and leaving thick white indents in his flesh. They burn when the blood flows into them, his hands tingling. Pete can’t help the groan that slips out between his teeth but he grabs Joe by the shoulders and turns him around. He’s got more important things to worry about right now. 

Joe looks at him, sees him for the first time, a flash of real recognition. 

“You okay?” Pete pants. Joe grabs him by the shoulder and then the back of the head, pulling him into a rough hug. His breath is sobbing in his chest and Pete pretends he doesn’t see how wet Joe’s cheeks are. 

Joe finally pulls back, lets go, looks at Pete. 

“Are you?” Joe croaks out, and then there’s a surge of nausea in Pete’s gut and vertigo slams into every single one of his senses, yanking him sideways and then upside-down and then _through_ somehow and- 

Pete is on his hands and knees, retching miserably against Joe’s dank, smelly carpet. There are tears in his eyes from the pain in his wrists and stomach, and his mouth tastes like plastic and lukewarm blood. 

Joe is gone. Pete’s alone in Joe’s room, but there’s a hopeful feeling in his chest that says maybe he hadn’t fucked up. Maybe he’d done whatever he was supposed to do, if he was supposed to _do_ anything. 

“One down,” comes a faintly amused voice. Pete hisses and doesn’t try to get up from the carpet. He’d been halfway expecting this bullshit. 

“One of what?” he asks when his stomach finally settles down a little bit and he can sit up. 

The dude is leaning against Joe’s wall, hands in his pockets and nasty little smile still in full force. 

“Trials. Tests. Whatever you wanna call ‘em, really,” he’s told. The dude doesn’t even look at him, pulling a hand out of his pocket to examine his nails with an affected air of disinterest. 

“...Trials,” Pete says flatly, levering himself to his knees and then creakily to his feet. He feels like he’s been hit by a car, possibly a couple of times. 

“Yep,” the dude pops the P and finally looks at Pete. He doesn’t really blink and it’s unnerving but Pete isn’t actually scared anymore. This weird jailor-cum-guide isn’t threatening so much as creepy and cryptic and infuriating. 

“No specifics?” Pete asks sarcastically. His fingertips tingle worryingly when he rubs his hands on his jeans and it occurs to him to think about loss of function. He _really likes_ playing the bass. 

The dude shrugs. 

“You picked your trials, kiddo.” His smile finally spreads out from the corner of his mouth, going jack-o’-lantern wide and somehow even more unnerving. “S’not up to me.” 

It reminds Pete, the very first thing he ever said to this dude. Something about looking. Something about Joe, and Andy. And Patrick. 

“Of course,” Pete mutters and rubs at his eyes. They ache. “Three of them, right?” 

“You tell me,” the dude says, but he’s gone when Pete pulls the hand away from his face. Pete isn’t really surprised. 

He considers freaking out, about all of this, about some bizarre and dangerous Herculean set of tasks and the Trickster god who apparently enjoys popping up just to be an asshole, but… It doesn’t seem worth it. It won’t help. There’s nothing he can do but try. 

“Right,” he tells himself, and heads for the door.

-8-

The town outside is the same, brilliantly lit by the mid-morning sunlight and numbingly hot. Pete stands in it for several long minutes, pulling in breath after deep breath, trying to cleanse his lungs of the heavy, dank air of Joe’s weird mirror-prison. His mouth stops tasting quite so much like plastic and blood when he spits a couple of times.

He feels cleaner, eventually, and starts to walk. Apparently he has more trials to go. 

He stands for a while at the end of the street and dithers for a while. He could go to Andy, or he could go for Patrick. Patrick’s is closer, but…

Pete winces and starts in the direction of Andy’s place.

-8-

Andy’s place is an hour or so away by foot and Pete takes it slow. More than ever he’s sure that time isn’t actually moving here, that the sun is the only reliable indication of what’s going on. It’s still hanging high over the east horizon, white-hot and blazing.

He stops several times along the way, sitting in the shade until he feels less overheated or stealing drinks from hoses left uncoiled on lawns. He could probably break into the empty houses lining the streets but when he considers it he feels too guilty to try. 

The silence is starting to get to him too. He keeps imagining he hears the wind rustling the trees - even though there hasn’t been a breath of wind the whole time Pete’s been in this Stepford hellscape - or someone slamming a front door. There’s never anything when he spins to look, though. Just deserted streets and cheerfully painted doors. 

Pete is pretty sure he’s ten minutes from stripping off his clothes and running down the street screaming just to break the silence when he finally reaches Andy’s street. 

Andy’s place is an apartment building set back a bit from the road behind a little knee-high hedge and some well-kempt grass. Or it had been. 

The hedge is ten feet high now and when Pete reaches the opening the grass is thick and high and wild. There are hedges beyond that, too, a long corridor bordered by hedges that leads off into the distance to either side. 

“Fucking fantastic,” Pete tells the still, hot air sourly. “A magic hedge maze, fucking great.”

No one answers. 

“I have to go in there, don’t I?” he asks, mostly rhetorically, kicking at the curb. 

“Not _really_ ,” comes the answer, and Pete jumps a foot into the air. 

The dude is sitting on the curb a few feet away, chin on his hands and hair falling over his face. Pete glares at him for nothing better to do. 

“I don’t?” he asks when it becomes apparent nothing else is forthcoming. 

The dude shrugs and leans back, planting his elbows on the sidewalk behind him to look up into the sky. He looks fresh and untouched by the sun. Like he hasn’t been slogging through hours and hours of bright summer morning, basically. 

“You can stay here,” the dude says without any particular emphasis. He glances over and a cruel grin crosses his lips. “Forever.” 

“The only fucking way out is through, huh?” Pete demands viciously. The dude shrugs again and turns his face back to the sun. 

Pete looks at the opening in the hedge again. He can make out the apartment in the distance, way farther back than it should have been. Its windows are opaque. 

“Seriously, a magic hedge maze?” he asks. “That’s a cliché right there.” 

The dude laughs and Pete glances back. He’s still sitting on the curb, still facing into the sun. When he doesn’t say anything Pete shrugs and steps forward. 

The air inside the hedge maze is cooler but moist, not the syrupy dry heat that pressed down outside. There seems to be a breeze here as well, something is rustling the hedges around him. 

When he looks back he can see the brilliant sun reflecting off the sidewalk, heatwaves wavering in the air. The curb is empty, the dude having pulled his typical vanishing act. Not that Pete had expected him to stick around. 

Pete spares exactly half a second to think about that before shuffling it into the category of thought he’s mentally labeled Not Worth The Time, Honestly and starts down the corridor to his left. 

There’s a half-remembered bit of middle school wisdom floating in his mind, something about mazes and getting out by keeping a hand on the left wall at all times. Pete wonders if that applies to magic mazes as well but inevitably arrives back at the conclusion that even if it doesn’t there’s not exactly anything he can do about it. 

Which, a little annoying, but bitching about it isn’t going to help. 

The maze is nice, a good change of pace after the dry heat of the rest of town. Pete wanders down aisle after aisle, sticking to left turns. It seems to help, if the way the apartment building is looming higher and higher when Pete tilts his head back to look at it. 

The hedges keep rustling, which is a little weird. Pete’s picked up on the fact that whatever’s rustling the hedges isn’t wind; he can’t feel any of it, anyway. 

He keeps going, at a slow meander. Nothing is threatening here, nothing urgent. 

The fact that it’s a magic maze apparently doesn’t stop him from solving it because he reaches the exit sooner than he thought he would. It opens out into a little lawn between the hedge and the front of the apartment building, the scuffed, greying white of the plastic siding hearteningly familiar. Pete grins and starts toward the door. 

The warning his gets is a huff of breath and Pete wouldn’t even notice if he hadn’t already gotten so used to the unending silence broken only by the faint hedges. It comes from behind him, from the direction of the maze he’d just left. It occurs to him that the hedges have stopped rustling. 

He turns slowly, fear threading through him cold and mean. 

There’s a monster standing behind him at the opening back into the maze.

It’s a dog, or maybe a wolf, or maybe just a big canine-ish animal with dirty, greasy fur and deep-set yellow eyes. Pete can smell it, waves of musk and blood and stinking breath rolling over him. It’s foul in his mouth when he sucks in an involuntary breath. 

It’s staring at Pete, staring without blinking or breathing. Too big to be real, taller than he is, wide enough that its shoulders brush the hedges to either side of it. Saliva dripping from its mouth between jagged yellow teeth is the only thing that moves. 

A rumbling growl echoes in the space between them and it takes Pete a moment of shock to place its origin as the dog-monster in front of him. 

Terror blooms in his chest, cold and thick and choking. 

“Shit,” he huffs, and throws himself back toward the apartment building. 

He hears the dog-thing crash after him, its shoulders knocking against the walls of the maze, hot breath brushing the back of his neck for one moment before searing pain slams down his arm and through his ribs and he’s being jerked back. 

The wolf shakes him once, by the shoulder, and Pete feels the skin of his arm tearing. Agony lances through him and he screams. Can’t stop screaming even when his feet leave the ground, when the wolf whips him through the air like it’s nothing. Like he weighs nothing at all.

He’s let go at the top of his swing, thrown forward and into the wall of the apartment building. 

Fear and pain are enough to clear Pete’s head, enough to prompt him to grab the doorknob inches from his hand, to get him to open the door and throw himself inside. The door slams shut behind him and he hears the wolf howl through the wall, snarling and broken and angry. He leans against the door and pants for air. 

Pete’s shoulder _burns_ and when he palms at it gingerly his hand comes away with wet red patches. Not a lot of blood but enough his vision greys at the edges. He wonders wildly if he’s going to become a werewolf now, if he’s infected with the fucking witchery that’s running this crazy world. 

He bites back a whimper, bites down on the hysterical giggle, and hauls himself upright. 

The door to the stairwell is hanging off a single hinge, hair caught in the edges of the door frame matching the matted greasy hair of the wolf creature. He examines it for a long moment and then glances back towards the door. It’s closed still, and undamaged, but he suddenly doesn’t trust it to be as much protection as he’d thought. 

He shivers and makes his way up the second floor, where Andy’s apartment is. There are pits in the concrete of the stairs that look like clawmarks. The door from the second floor is lying on the floor of the landing. 

Pete stares at it for a moment and then steps carefully over it. 

The hall is a warzone, the industrial carpeting ripped up in long tracts and the thin plaster of the wall dented and crumbling where something massive and heavy slammed into it. Pete hobbles past them as fast as he can, barely bothering to note that fur has been left behind here as well, pulled out by the animal’s destructive passage. 

Andy’s apartment is ruined. 

It’s also empty, although there’s a little blood spattered around the punched-out doorframe. There’s broken furniture all over the place, the windows webbed with cracks. Andy’s television is in pieces all over the floor, all of his precious equipment strewn across the carpets. The drum kit is the worst of it. Andy never let anyone so much as breathe on the thing without everything short of an FBI background check and now it’s so many splintered chunks of wood and twisted metal hoops. 

Pete drops to his knees and picks up a drumstick. It’s dented so much it’s almost bent, but it’s whole. Pete stares at it. There’s not enough blood for Andy to be dead, he reasons with his shaking hands. 

A thought occurs to him and he looks up slowly. 

The destruction is wanton, and panicked, and it occurs to Pete that the only living things he’s seen here were Joe and his weird guide. 

So, the wolf then. 

So, the wolf and the maze. 

Fucking _metaphors_. 

“Fuck,” Pete mutters, and levers himself upright. “Fucking _shit_.” 

Heading back down the stairs is easier going than going up, and the pain in his shoulder has dulled to a thick spiking sensation every time he twists his torso. Pete tries his best to ignore it and keeps putting one foot in front of the other until he’s fetched up against the wall by the door to the outside. 

He’s almost sure he can hear the wolf breathing on the other side of the wall. 

“If I get killed for this I’m gonna haunt the _shit_ out of you, Hurley,” he addresses the wall. 

His answer is a mournful howl that sets his teeth on edge. The wolf is right outside the door. Not that he expected any different. 

“Let’s Tam Lin this shit,” Pete mutters to himself and wrenches the door open. 

The wolf is frozen in apparent shock for a moment and that’s long enough. Pete throws himself at it, catches it around the neck with his good arm and clings. His momentum and weight are enough to pull it sideways and down, into a roll that makes the wolf yelp and twist. 

Pete holds on grimly. It’s the only thing he can do as the wolf rolls, and rolls again, and then shakes itself desperately in an attempt to dislodge Pete. It doesn’t work against Pete’s death grip around its neck. 

Interminable minutes later the wolf stops, freezes. Pete clings all the tighter; he doesn’t trust this and anyway the ballad of Tam Lin had been pretty fucking clear on the subject of what to do in these situations: keep holding on, not matter what. 

Pete gets it, gets the whole fucking metaphor. He’s still going to murder the dude if he ever sees him again. 

The wolf shudders all over and suddenly the thick furred neck locked in Pete’s arms is thinner and more flexible and scaled. 

The python drops across his chest and he rolls over it, clenching his hands around it and holding tight. It holds back. Pete can’t spare the arm to push it away and it winds around his neck, pulling tight. And then tighter, and stars are growing in front of Pete’s eyes and it takes everything he has not to loosen his grip and then-

The snake isn’t a snake anymore, it’s a giant-ass moose and Pete’s dangling from its neck by a tenuous grip on one horn. He adjusts as best he can and clings through the bucking, and then it’s a fucking _salmon_ , what the fuck, and he holds onto that. 

It feels like hours, hours of fighting to hold on to every kind of animal he can think of and a couple he isn’t sure are real, may have been hallucinations from pain and exhaustion. Hours before he registers that the fighting is getting weaker, that it’s only a matter of getting a new grip before the shape flickers again. 

Finally it’s just him, arms wrapped around the neck of what he’s pretty sure is a massive oriental dragon. His hands barely touch around it, it’s so big. It’d be beyond cool if he had the energy to appreciate it but both he and the dragon are exhausted, panting for breath. Lying still in the grass. 

“Come on, Hurley,” Pete mutters into the dragon’s scales and a second later he’s breathing into warm, smooth skin. 

He jolts back, lets go in shock, and he has a moment to panic before he recognizes who he’s lying half on top of. 

Andy blinks at him, face pale and drawn and a little bit of dried blood crusted in the corner of his mouth. Pete doesn’t think about it, scrambling up to his knees to hug Andy around the shoulders. 

“Jesus, Pete. What the fuck inspired you to hug a fucking werewolf?” Andy asks when Pete finally lets go. His voice is hoarse and cracking

“Tam Lin,” Pete pants out, and catches the skeptical look Andy shoots him. “What, I went to fucking DePaul okay? And I write poetry. Fuck off.” 

“Whatever,” Andy huffs, and goes to stand. 

Something twists in Pete’s gut, something sick and awful and familiar, and Pete throws himself towards Andy, reaching for his shoulder with his good hand. 

He falls through, and then falls _through_ , and there’s that feeling again that he’s being turned inside out and sideways, being pulled through a hole in the universe one bitty atom at a time-

He drops to his knees in bright green, clipped grass and heaves. 

Nothing comes up and he finally stills, pressing his face into the soft blades of grass and breathing as shallowly as his can. His wrists are aching again, and the bright burn of pain in his shoulder reminds him that Were-Andy had bitten him hard enough to leave bloody red patches on his shirt. 

He paws at the wound and his hand comes away clean. His arm still twinges when he tries to move it, though. God, he hopes he hasn’t permanently fucked up his hands. He needs them to _play_. 

“Two down,” the dude says, and Pete rolls over onto his back. 

The dude is standing over him, Andy’s apartment building framing him. The hedge maze is gone like it hadn’t ever existed - which, magic Pete guesses - and he’s lying in the grassy verge between the building and the street. Andy is gone, just like Joe. 

“This is shit, man,” he complains and hauls himself to his feet. “Why _me_?” 

The dude is grinning his same grin when Pete looks at him, hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. 

“Usually doesn’t take this long for people to ask,” he comments.

Pete jolts. 

“You did this to _other_ people?” he demands, suddenly sick to his stomach all over again. He can fathom himself deserving this. He can understand that. He can’t imagine anyone else deserving to go through this. 

The dude just shrugs. 

“Do I get an answer?” Pete asks, aware his tone is approaching what some might call bitchy. He thinks it might be warranted. 

“‘Fraid not,” the dude says and shrugs _again_. 

Pete wonders if punching out the possible deity of this place would make things better or worse. Regretfully he decides it probably wouldn’t even work. 

“I hate you,” he tells the dude honestly. The dude shrugs, smile twisting a little at the edges. 

“Fair enough,” he says, and he’s gone. Pete blinks and between one moment and the next the dude is just gone. Pete bares his teeth in something that really isn’t a grin and then spits on the ground. 

“Fuck you,” he mutters, rubbing his shoulder. It still hurts. Nothing replies. 

Patrick next, Pete thinks, and flinches. Joe’s… trial thing, whatever the dude had called it, had hurt. Andy’s had hurt worse. Patrick’s was probably going to be the worst of all. It usually shook out that way, anyway. Always had before. 

Pete sits himself down on the curb and stares at the pavement for a while. 

He wonders what kind of trial Patrick would be. Joe had been easy, all his neuroses and OCD tendencies wrapped up in a healthy dose of what Pete can’t help but think of as black magic. A really fucking heavy-handed metaphor, honestly, and Pete _knows_ from heavy-handed metaphor. Andy was similarly heavy-handed, something about loss of control that Pete can’t stand to think about for longer than a few moments. 

It feels like an invasion of privacy to know. 

Patrick, god, he knows any number of what Patrick’s could be. Pete knows too much about him, knows lists and lists of the things Patrick hates about himself. More than he should, more than Patrick’s probably comfortable with. It’s only fair, Pete reasons with the pavement between his feet. Patrick knows everything about Pete, knows every twisty little bit of himself he’s ever let out on paper. 

The pavement doesn’t say anything back but it really doesn’t have to. The words ring false. 

Pete had given himself away. Patrick hadn’t; Pete had stolen every bit that he knew. 

Pete coughs out a breath and forces himself to his feet. He doesn’t want to think about any of this. Hasn’t in weeks, maybe months. 

“You’re trying to teach me something, right?” he demands of the empty air. “There’s a fucking moral, isn’t there? Just fucking give it to me already!” 

Nothing answers and eventually he starts off down the street. He knows the way to Patrick’s house. The only way out is through.

-8-

Patrick’s house is normal, looks normal as it ever does. The lawn in trimmed and the door is unlocked when Pete tries the knob hesitantly. He pushes it open and steps into the cool front hall.

The house is silent. Nothing stirs in it but the slow eddy of dust in the still air. Pete briefly considers searching the house but he doesn’t. He knows where he’s going. Where all this shit began, honestly. 

He heads for the basement. 

The stairs are dark, and the light flickers alarmingly when Pete flicks it on. It takes him a moment to focus in it, to put his feet safely on the dusty treads of the stairs. He notes abstractly that his hands are shaking when he reaches out to steady himself on the walls. The basement is dark too and Pete has to grope on the wall for agonizing seconds before he finds the light switch. 

The light flickers on and Patrick uncoils from where he’d been sitting on the couch across the dim, dusty room. Pete has to swallow back a lump in his throat to breathe. 

This Patrick isn’t his Patrick. 

He’s young, younger than he should be, and with a jolt Pete recognizes what he’s wearing. It’s argyle, and knee socks, and shorts. What he’d been wearing the first time they’d met. All baby fat and fugly glasses and the stance that screams insecurity. He vaguely recognizes the shapeless trucker hat jammed over Patrick’s hair. One of the countless ones they’d lost in the transition from house to van to house to van again to house again. 

The way Patrick’s staring at Pete is all the Patrick as he should be though, expression all Patrick the age he was when Pete had gone to sleep last night. The Patrick that can’t look Pete in the eye, that meets his gaze when he absolutely has to with something opaque and unfriendly in his expression. It hurts to look at and he fucking deserves it. 

“What are you doing here?” Patrick asks, breaking the silence. Pete flinches. The voice is all new-Patrick too, none of the affection that it used to have. A professional monotone. 

“You’re my last, uh… trial?” Pete offers for nothing better to say. He doesn’t know the protocol here. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, or at least nothing he can fix. No wires to untangle and no wolves to hug. He doesn’t know if he even should mention the trials but nothing happens when he does except Patrick huffs out an annoyed sigh. 

“Trial, huh?” Patrick says and there’s something in the twist of his mouth that indicates he’s not pleased. Pete can’t quite suss out what, but he’s gotten used to that too. 

“I guess,” Pete mutters, staring at his shoes. He feels more defeated now, in the face of Patrick’s veiled hostility, than ever before. 

“That’s all I am to you, is it?” Patrick asks, poisonously soft. Pete’s head jerks up and Patrick’s face isn’t _veiled_ anything. It’s twisted and angry now. “A trial?” 

“That’s not fair-,” Pete tries to say but Patrick’s stalking across the room and cutting him off. 

“A fucking trial? Fuck you. What do you even want, Pete?” Patrick demands, up in Pete’s face like he never did when he was the age he looks now. Like he does now, or used to before. Pete’s getting all twisted up and Patrick is pushing him backwards, a hand on his shoulder. “Do you even know? You have no fucking clue what you want so you keep jerking people around until they get sick of you, isn’t that how it goes?” 

“Stop,” Pete chokes out. He can’t breathe, he can’t get his lungs to work. 

“You’re a piece of shit, Peter,” Patrick seethes and Pete’s back hits the wall. “You can’t do that to people, you can’t expect people to stick around if you do that to them.” 

“I didn’t mean to,” Pete gets out before his words choke off and he can’t say anything else. Patrick’s body heat is a furnace against his front, affecting him more than the perpetual mid-morning sunshine somewhere a few feet over their head. 

“You’re gonna have to choose, Pete,” Patrick says, and falls back a step. “You’re gonna have to decide if you want me or not, because you can’t keep jerking me around.” 

The next instant there’s a noise kind of like the crack of bone breaking and a gunshot. 

The basement is still, and quiet, and empty. The couch is deflated and sad against the far wall. The carpet is covered in a thin layer of dust. The ceiling light dims and then brightens, revealing nothing at all. 

Pete’s ribcage seizes, his heart stopping for a moment and then going double-time. 

“Patrick?” he asks quietly, tentatively. 

Nothing answers but settling dust. 

“Patrick!” he calls, and still nothing answers, and he’s absolutely alone again. 

The dust is in his lungs, choking out all of the oxygen. Pete coughs it out and drags in his deepest breath. 

“I know you can hear me, you asshole!” Pete roars to the empty air, and kicks over the guitar stand near his foot. “ _Get out here!_ ”

“I don’t answer to you,” the dude replies from behind Pete and Pete spins, has hold of the dude’s sleeve so fast the dude actually blinks in shock. It’s the first expression Pete’s seen on his face that wasn’t a mean smile. 

“Did I fail the test?” Pete pants out. 

The dude stares at him, expression smoothing out until it’s blank and empty of emotion. 

“Did I _fail?_ ” Pete snarls. 

“You wouldn’t still be here if you had,” the dude says at last, and flicks Pete’s hand off. He’s gone in the next moment, and Pete’s knees hit the floor. 

Panic pushes him back to his feet before the impact’s finished vibrating through him, heart in his throat and blood pounding in his ears. He’s running, up the stairs and through the house so fast he hipchecks a wall on his way out. The pain is sharp and doesn’t even slow him down. 

He hits the sun-bleached sidewalk and stops because he doesn’t know where to _go_. 

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” he mutters and spins towards one end of the street and then the other. To Joe’s, and then back toward Andy’s, and then back again. Where should he _go_? 

Neither place feels right when he thinks about them. He’s solved their puzzles. Their trials have been defeated. 

There’s really only one place left to go, if he can’t go to Joe’s or Andy’s and there’s nothing he can do here. 

He makes his way across town in record time, houses passing blurs of flashing windows and pastel colors. Air burns when he heaves in lungful after lungful but his legs only ache gently and so he doesn’t stop running. Some part of the magic in this dream-world means he can keep going and he’s not going to question it. 

He trips over a curb in downtown, rolls into the fall and keeps going. He’s pretty sure he would have broken something in the real world but all that happens is the bite in his shoulder aches sharply. Nothing he can’t handle. 

His front door is wide open, it turns out. He skids to a stop in his lawn, panting and tasting phantom blood, and stares at it. 

He doesn’t remember doing that but he’d been in a panic. It’s possible he’d left it open. It’s also possible this is part of his trial. 

He goes inside. 

The place looks the same as when he’d left it, tipped-over coffee table and all. Pete stares at it for a moment before poking around in the kitchen for a few minutes. There’s the vague sense he’s in the right place but he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, goddamnit. 

Eventually he climbs the stairs to his room and sits down on the bed, kicking at the carpet vaguely. The skin around Andy’s bite-mark is hot and itching with irritation. 

“You could give me a _hint_.” Pete hisses to the room at large. The dude doesn’t deign to show himself and he kicks at the carpet again in annoyance. 

Eventually he stands up and wanders over to his closet, glancing in the mirror propped against his wall as he passes. He’d put it there forever ago as a momentary resting spot before he hung it and then never got around to it. It was conveniently placed to examine the fit of his jeans, was all. 

He does a double take and backs up a few steps. 

The room is reflected perfectly in the mirror except Pete isn’t in it. The bedsheets are wrinkled from his passage, the carpet rucked up where he’d kicked it, but no Pete. Not a trace of him. He has no reflection. 

Pete steps through it feeling like he’s moving in a dream. The mirror doesn’t give like Joe’s did, it doesn’t even offer Pete any resistance when he topples through. A moment of cold, if anything, like a blast from a freezer door before-

-8-

He jolts awake in the backseat of their van, their first van, the one that had been nominally Joe’s. It’s hot as shit, sweat breaking out on the back of Pete’s neck.

Andy’s sitting next to him, headphones in and fast asleep. Joe’s driving, humming along to nothing in particular. It’s dark outside, one of the thousands of anonymous little towns they’d driven through in their time slipping past the windows. 

Pete stares at himself in the middle seat. 

His head is down, all Pete can make out the back of his own ridiculous haircut. His shoulders are hunched over his notebook, the tension in them that Pete recognizes intimately. The buzz under his skin that he has to write or scream or fuck out of himself. It’s in the jerky turn of his wrist as he flips the page over, the scribble of his handwriting even worse than normal. 

Patrick is watching him, the him that belongs in this van and in this time. 

His expression is soft, way too young, too compassionate. It makes Pete achy and uncomfortable just to see. Pete wants to grab his past-self’s notebook away, drag him around to force him to look and _see_. 

He’s slipping sideways though, somehow out from between one second and the next. 

There’s an elbow slamming into the side of his head and Pete staggers, falls sideways and catches hold of the edge of a stage. He holds on to it for dear life, shaking the stars from his vision. 

There’s a crowd behind him screaming incomprehensibly and there’s a familiar voice above him, singing words he knows better than anything. 

Patrick’s there when Pete looks up, clutching the microphone stand and singing so hard Pete’s lungs throb in sympathy. Joe’s beside him, playing his heart out. Pete can’t see Andy from where he’s standing but he can hear the drums, absolutely steady and powerful. 

He sees himself, spinning in place like an idiot, bass in hand, smile on his face like the Fourth of July. 

Another elbow to the side of the head and he falls to his knees in the grass of a lawn. He vaguely recognizes the house of one of his DePaul sort-of-friends and there’s a rager of a party going on inside if the music and drunk people making out on the porch are any indication. He doesn’t remember this but he vaguely recognizes himself as one of the drunk people on the porch. It’s his memory, then. 

“You’re really slow to get this.” 

The dude is a few feet away, hands in his pockets, untouched and unruffled as ever. 

Pete snarls and lunges for him. Anger is a swelling force in his gut, hot and ugly in his throat. He catches denim with his fingertips but then gravity heaves sickeningly and he’s spinning end over end and-

He slams into the side of the van and he’s in his own skin this time, he knows because Patrick’s staring him right in the eyes and when he tries to move he can’t. He’s an alien in his own body and he watches as he accepts the kiss Patrick presses to his mouth. 

It’s hot, hot and wet and nervy, like Pete remembers. A little more teeth than most people would like but perfect for Pete. Patrick’s panting when he pulls back, anger fading from his eyes to be replaced with veiled panic. 

Pete remembers this. The argument, though he can’t remember over what. The pathetic attempt at a fight that ended in Patrick shoving him into the side of the van. The kiss, and what happened after. 

“If that’s how you get me to agree to shit I should pick more fights,” he feels himself say, hears his own words. 

He catches a glimpse of Patrick’s face, some odd mix of relief and humiliation his memories hadn’t gotten quite right before he’s falling backwards through the side of the van and into his own room. 

He’s watching himself again, watching himself scribbling away in his goddamn notebook. Something loud and angry and ugly is leaking from the headphones hooked over his past-self’s ears. Pete doesn’t remember what; there are too many nights like this in his past to recall specifics. 

“What am I missing?” he begs the empty air after a long moment of nothing. 

“Your trial,” the dude says next to him, tone utterly disinterested. “You chose this for yourself, you tell me.” 

On the bed Pete’s phone buzzes and he glances at it, sets his notebook aside to pick it up. Whatever it has to say makes him smile as he taps out a reply. 

The dude is gone again when Pete turns to look and when Pete takes a step towards the bed to poke around he falls through the floor. 

He kind of huffs a sigh as he tumbles for a moment between realities. The nausea and vertigo are getting _really_ old and the ache in his bones is building worryingly. 

He stumbles to a stop in the closet of a hotel room and he opens the door to peek out. 

He recognizes the place instantly, in a burst of fear and humiliation and the burning desire to be _out_ of there. 

His past-self is on the bed, Patrick is straddling his lap, and they’re kissing like the world is ending. Pete remembers that, the desperate heat and need. He remembers how good it had felt, and how fleeting. It’s a little painful and a little embarrassing to see that much need from the outside. 

He watches Patrick break the kiss and lean back and knows what happens next. 

“Do you think we could ever be, you know, something?” Patrick is asking shyly, something bright and soft and hopeful Pete doesn’t want to name on his face. 

Pete knows the words out of his own mouth. He knows the complicated, painful cocktail of emotions that would be swirling in his gut, the overwhelming panic and disbelief. The denial, and the desperate fear of losing Patrick. The memories of every time he’d fucked himself over in situations just like this, prophetically. 

“I don’t know, dude,” Pete hears himself say, and hates every syllable. “Do we really have to make a big deal out of this? It’s just for fun, you know?” 

He doesn’t look at Patrick’s face. He’d seen it once already and that was enough. Instead he shuts the closet door and turns away, slides down to sit on the ground, pressing his face into his knees. 

“I’ve seen enough,” he says softly. “Make it stop.” 

“This isn’t my trial,” the dude says. He’s sitting across from Pete when he looks up. There’s the faint echo of voice from the other side of the closet door, and then the soft sound of a door shut very deliberately. 

_Fucking heavy-handed metaphors_ , Pete thinks to himself hysterically. He can hear himself sitting on the bed, and then the impact of a fist on the wooden headboard. 

“What am I supposed to be learning here?” he asks desperately. The dude shrugs, looks up at the ceiling of the closet instead of at him. “I already know I’m an asshole, I don’t need to see this again.” 

“I got no clue,” he’s told. “That’s the way the trials work, you win or you don’t. I’ve got nothing to do with it.” 

They sit in silence for a minute, and another. Pete’s thoughts are spinning in place, utterly useless and disconnected. Something about choices, and Patrick’s mouth on his, Patrick’s face in every iteration of emotion Pete can fathom. And somewhere in there a trial. 

Pete fists his hands in his hair and scrubs, trying to relieve the ache. 

“It can’t be that simple,” he says, more to himself than to the dude seated a few inches away. 

The dude doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even shrug when Pete looks his way. Just stares at the ceiling, expression blank. 

Pete holds his breath for a moment and then exhales explosively. He’s exhausted, _beyond_ exhausted. His limbs ache and move slowly like he’s fighting his way against a current. 

When he opens the closet door and steps through into Patrick’s basement he’s not surprised even a little bit. He recognizes the scene, sags back against the wall by the staircase and waits. 

Patrick is singing. 

It’s Saves the Day, and Pete’s past-self is standing a few feet away. His mouth is open like an idiot and he’s staring at Patrick like Patrick is Christmas, Pete’s birthday, and the answer to all Pete’s prayers all rolled up into one. It’s kind of stupid to see from the outside and Pete’s almost tempted to try to close his gaping mouth by force. 

He doesn’t, just bobs his head a little along with Patrick’s voice. 

The song dies off and there’s a moment of quiet before past-Pete is jumping up and down, tackling Patrick in a blur of nervous energy. 

“Fuck _yes_ , you’re perfect,” Pete hears himself say, and he turns away and starts to climb the stairs. They’re dusty and the upstairs is deserted when he drags his way into the living room, and then the front hall. 

It’s a brilliant summer day when Pete steps out the front door. Sun blasts the pavement of the driveway and Pete drops into the grass with a deep groan. 

“I figured it out, I think,” he tells the empty air. 

“You sure about that?” Patrick asks from the front door. His tone is dry and unfriendly. There’s nothing inviting in the way he shuts the door behind him and makes his way over to where Pete’s sitting. Pete watches him come and quirks the best smile he can. 

“I think so,” he replies. Patrick examines his face for a long moment. 

“Have at it,” he says at last, gesturing out expansively. 

Pete beckons for him to come closer, isn’t terribly offended when Patrick hesitates before settling next to him. At least he does it; Pete hadn’t been sure he would. 

“I’m going to make things right with you, when I wake up,” Pete promises, reaching out to touch Patrick’s knee. It’s warm and solid through the denim. “I’m going to tell you the truth.” 

Patrick’s face draws tight, and Pete wants to flinch away but doesn’t. 

“So what’s the truth, Pete?” Patrick asks steadily. He’s not fooling Pete though. Pete know the tone he uses when he’s barely holding on to composure. 

Pete’s not sure if he’s mad or scared. He’s not sure it matters. 

“I’m going to tell you I love you,” Pete says softly. 

There’s the sound of glass shattering and Pete is toppling back out of the mirror. It’s only by a split second that he twists enough to hit the floor with his shoulder and not the back of his head. As it is he hits the floor with a yelp of pain and rolls to his feet, looking around wildly. 

“I didn’t fail, right?” he demands of the disheveled bedsheets and poster-covered walls. “That was the answer!” 

Nothing answers him for a long moment and then there’s a hand on his shoulder, spinning him around. 

He catches a glimpse of the dude’s face, smile in place - not so twisted now, not quite mean, more rueful than anything - and then he’s spinning again. 

He holds his breath as he goes, against the nausea and against the fear that he’s failed and he’s going to fall forever. That tumbling from memory to sun-drenched unreality back to memory is going to be the rest of his life - if he can even die. 

Warm grass brushes his knees and a blindly flailing arm briefly seizes a handful of tiny branches and leaves. The hedge maze stills in his vision, a blur of green and gold and the swelling sky-blue mass that had been Andy as a dragon. The leaves slip through his fingers in a moment though and he’s falling again, everything going dim. 

He stumbles over thick carpet, broken glass under his feet. It’s some odd amalgamation of his and Joe’s living rooms, his own broken coffee table and Joe’s mother’s decorations shattered underfoot. Walls protrude at odd angles and he stumbles back out of that reality with a sense of relief as he spins away. He feels lukewarm, slimy water on his hands, tastes blood for a moment. 

The glimpses are harder and harder to grab hold of and eventually Pete just closes his eyes.

-8-

Struggling through the layers of grogginess and exhaustion is hard. Pete knows there’s something important he’s reaching for, though, presses on through it all and gropes for some semblance of an idea of where it is.

He makes out the faint feeling of warmth and fabric under his fingers and twitches a little bit. Awareness of his body trickles in a few inches at a time. 

Pete’s eye cracks open and then slams shut again. The ceiling light is on and there’s someone nearby talking in a nervous undertone. It takes an effort to tune in and Pete identifies it as Joe. 

“-I mean, he keeps twitching? Is that a seizure? I really think we should call the hospital dude, he’s still not waking up.” 

“I don’t think he’s seizing, I think he’s waking up,” comes Andy’s voice, dry and sarcastic, and Pete huffs out a garbled attempt at agreement. It comes out a strangled series of vowels but the next second all the air in his lungs is slamming out as a body is thrown across his chest. 

He pries open his eyelids and Joe’s face eclipses the ceiling light, wide-eyed and creased with concern. Something tense and thick in Pete’s chest untwists and he battles his unresponsive limbs to throw his arms around Joe, clinging as tight as he can. 

“Thank fuck,” Joe breathes. 

“Hi,” Pete says after clearing the hoarseness from his throat. His voice still sounds like gravel and feels like sandpaper in his throat. 

A second later Andy is slamming into his side too, warm and heavy and so reassuring. Pete frees an arm to throw clumsily around him as well. 

“Are you okay, dude?” Joe asks softly after a few seconds. “You were kinda… Passed out on the floor when I came over. You weren’t waking up. Kind of scary.” 

“I, um,” Pete says and has to pause to cough. His mouth is dry and there’s a hint of a dehydration headache behind his eyes and he doesn’t even care. “I think so.” 

“Pete,” comes Patrick’s voice, and Pete can’t help the way his whole body jolts. Andy and Joe sit back and let Pete sit up a little. 

Patrick’s standing back against the wall, as far back from the bed as he can get. He meets Pete’s eyes for all of a second before looking down at his feet. 

“We’ll go grab you some coffee,” Andy says after an awkward second and drags a protesting Joe out the door and down the stairs. 

Patrick’s face is bloodless and pale but gaining color by the second until his cheeks are bright red. Pete watches with interest. He’s pretty sure he knows what is going on, what all of this means. 

A second chance. 

He can get this right.


End file.
